Winter hailstorm

I shouldn't expect winter in Australia to be comparable to those I'm familiar with in the Midwest, but the colder months are just plain weird here.

I'd describe winter in Sydney as one that has characteristics of all the seasons back home. There have been really hot days (summer), rainy days (spring), windy, cool days (fall) and days where ice falls from the sky (winter). Okay, it was actually hail, which typically has nothing to do with winter...unless you're in Australia.

Anyway, today was one of those messed up days where we got slapped with all four seasons at once. By mid-afternoon I noticed that the sun faded under dark cloud looming over Mt. Keira. Having retained some remnants of my meteorology obsession from the mid-1990s, I knew we were in for something big.

Within a half hour, we were in the grips of one nasty thunderstorm. Besides the thunder and lightning, the wind was out of control, the rain was lashing against our roof, and we got a fair bit of pea-sized hail. It was so hilarious because this was the closest thing to snow my Indian roommate Ankita had ever seen--so she was thrilled to say the very least.

But the funniest thing about it all was that instead of the heat and humidity usually associated with thunderstorms, it was freezing outside. I was sitting out on our porch in my winter coat, watching as the hail pelted the crap out of my neighbour's car. Could this honestly be normal weather here?

All's calm now, though I've heard heaps of sirens since the storm ended. Maybe thunderstorms in Australian winters aren't so common after all.